UPDATE 1-Britain's Capita gets Australian bid for travel business

March 12 (Reuters) - British outsourcing firm Capita said on Tuesday that Australia’s Corporate Travel Management had made an unsolicited bid for its travel business.

Capita, which provides IT-led services for the public and private sector, has been disposing of non-core businesses to help control costs and pay down debt.

Jonathan Lewis, who was appointed as chief executive in late 2017 after a series of profit warnings, is trying to simplify Capita after years of acquisitions.

“Given the stage of discussions, which are ongoing, there is no certainty that the disposal will complete or of the transaction consideration,” Capita said in a statement, adding that it had received the offer several weeks ago.

Capita had lined up non-core disposals worth more than 400 million pounds for 2018, and more in the following two years, with a plan to return to revenue growth in 2020.

It sold its parking management business, ParkingEye, in July, a month after selling its Supplier Assessment Services business, including Constructionline.

Capita’s services in Britain range from running the system that pays National Health Service dentists to hospital triage support, collecting the congestion charge for driving in central London and helping retailers manage online shopping sites. (Reporting by Justin George Varghese in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli and Alexander Smith)